A Guide to Richmond Thrift Stores

After Butter Bean completely destroyed my last living room chair with her deadly weapon claws (it was pretty crappy anyway, so I just let her go at it), I went hunting for a new one, and I realized that I'm a damn good thrift shopper. I dragged boyfriend to two thrift stores and we had a new chair within 45 minutes. You may see the fine new purchase below. Butter Bean loves it, too.

So to share my expertise, I've created a Google Map featuring my favorite thrift stores and also the ones I've been to and wouldn't recommend to anyone for anything. I hope that it is useful to someone. May you find whatever thrifty goods your heart desires! 

View Richmond VA Thrift Stores in a larger map

Recipe: Campfire Quinoa Stew

Things have been crazy around here. That's why I haven't written. Boyfriend and I took a couple days off and had an extra long Memorial Day weekend camping in Pocahontas County, West Virginia. I also have a job interview in West Virginia in a couple weeks which has had my mind working overtime.

Anyway, while we were camping I made a tasty campfire stew that I want to remember the recipe for. I'm naming it Campire Quinoa Stew, and here are the ingredients:

- Half of a large sweet onion, diced
- Half of a bell pepper, diced
- A large carrot (or a bunch of baby carrots, diced
- a cube and a half of vegetable bouillon
- 2 tblsp olive or sunflower oil
- 1.5 c of water
- 3/4 c uncooked quinoa
- a big handful of uncooked lentils
- diced roasted red tomatoes (I bought the Kroger brand because it featured a pop-top can lid, requiring no can opener.)

Clearly these ingredients are pretty flexible, but I chose veggies I'd be using in other meals as well and other stuff that would be easy to handle while camping. It would be delicious with any bean but I didn't want to take a can opener so I used lentils instead since they can be cooked pretty quickly. The campfire smokiness is what made the stew special but I'm still going to cook something similar at home, I'm sure. My recipe yielded 3-4 servings and it's more filling that you'd expect.

In a campfire-safe soup pot, sautee the onion, carrot, and pepper in olive oil until they start to become tender. Throw in your veggie bouillon. Throw in your quinoa. Stir it all up and let sautee for a couple minutes.

Add water and canned tomatoes. Add lentils. Stir. Once the soup starts boiling, move it to a cooler part of the fire, cover, and allow to simmer. How long the soup needs to simmer depends on your fire. Mine simmered for 30-40 minutes and I just checked it every 10 mins until the lentils were tender.

I think this meal will go into our regular gourmet camping dinner rotation. It's healthy, filling, and highly nutritious. Like every other meal I make while camping, it took forever to cook! Get started early because it takes a good hot fire to get the veggies sauteed and the liquids boiling.

I will post more about the trip soon. It was fun but Boyfriend had a nasty cold so we sort of took it easy. Saw lots of beautiful things though and came home feeling refreshed.

Inspirational Blogging

It's funny, the ways I find inspiration to keep blogging. I teach computer classes for beginners at the library, and one of my students told me about his dad's blog. We went looking for it and found it through a Google search. His dad, who is in his 80's, blogs every day about the things going on in his life. I found it fascinating to read his news--church renovations, gardening, updates on his family. Before he started keeping a blog, he kept a journal and wrote in it daily. I really felt inspired by this man's voice and his drive to record his experiences. I wish I felt as comfortable doing this as he seems to be.

Post-wedding Brewery Pit Stop in Grandy, NC

It's been a busy couple of weeks. I spent most of last week in Philadelphia for the Public Library Association conference. It was inspiring and fun but also very exhausting. I think I'll write about that adventure next time, because last weekend, I went to a wedding in the Outer Banks with Boyfriend and haven't yet been able to write about it.

On the way back home to Richmond from the wedding, we stopped for lunch at the Weeping Radish Farm Brewery. It was a fun place place to have a beer and some German food. Or in my case, a chicken Philly sandwich. The best part is they have goats! 

Weeping Radish Brewery, Butchery, and Pub

The little one is pretty cool.

Boyfriend and I, who were both pretty hungover from a weekend spent drinking in honor of his friend's marriage, shared a sampler of the beer varieties they brew on premises at the Weeping Radish. Someone in our party also ordered an impressive sausage sampler. I don't like sausage and I didn't eat any but it looked like something a meat lover might enjoy--a giant plate of sausages, served with salty pretzels.

Beer samplers are always adventures in themselves.

The beer here was not really my thing. It all tasted a little watery to me. They have a German version of a Shandy that I liked, and the IPA was definitely drinkable. But I was underwhelmed by the Weeping Radish beers, even while I had a great time tasting each variety, eating some of the best onion rings I've ever had, and petting some super rad goats (I want one now.). It was a perfect hangover lunch experience--a cherry on top of a long weekend full of quality time with friends. 

Bread Machine Sweet Potato Rolls

More success with the bread machine! Yeah! I mixed this roll dough in the bread machine and then baked them in the oven. They were super easy (though they did take some time to rise). These sweet potato rolls have a great texture and orange-ish color, but they do not have a strong sweet potato flavor. Their flavor is very subtle.

Mmm, homemade sweet potato rolls!

Ingredients: 

1/2 c warm water

1 medium cooked and mashed sweet potato (I cut mine up and boiled it)

4 tbsp brown sugar

3 tbsp softened butter

2 eggs

1 + 1/8 c whole wheat flour

2 + 1/2 c all-purpose flour
2 tbsp vital wheat gluten (not necessary if you're using bread flour)

2 tsp salt

1.5 tsp bread machine yeast

You want this dough to be pretty dry. It should be easy to handle, because you're going to create little balls out of the dough and then put them in a greased baking pan to rise and bake. I used pie pans, and my dough balls looked like this:

After rising for about 45 minutes, they looked like this:

Stick em in the oven at 375 for 15 or 20 minutes, and you've got some awesome rolls for fall and winter! Great rolls for a soup or stew. I served mine with roasted chicken and vegetables.

For these rolls, I adapted a recipe from Allrecipes. It provides instructions for preparing the rolls without a bread machine, using slightly different ingredients.